


Messiah

by theosymphany



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Easter related, M/M, Messianic Piers, Piers Lives, Post canon, Self-Reflection, discussing the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 16:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6384100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theosymphany/pseuds/theosymphany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris finally reveals some of his thoughts and fears from his time in Edonia and the meaning of all Piers had done for him. A reflective piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Messiah

It was finally a sunny morning on Easter Sunday. Armed with a hot cross bun each, Chris and his partner Piers filed out from the grey shale of the church, blending with the crowd on their way towards a nearby park, hoping to get some more time in the sun after a dreary winter season.

“That hot cross bun never lasted long, Chris.” Piers said, watching the man finish the buttered raisin bun in a number of bites. He still have a few bites of his chocolate chip one to go.

“It’s the best part of the service.” Chris said, dusting his fingers.

“You know, I don’t recall you going to services much before Edonia.” Piers said. “Not trying to pry or anything.”

“You’d be right. I always got things done by myself, by my own way. Things get busy, and living on base mean you don’t get to be a regular.”

“You’re OK to talk about it further?” Piers asked, trying to keep it light, open but conversational. There is a lot he is still trying to connect with his old captain about since their respective disappearances from Edonia and China, and Chris is a well-guarded man when it comes to sharing. He wears emotions on his sleeves, but like most old veterans, he’s mostly a closed book about the past horrors, feelings and wisdom beneath the living legend others see him as.

Chris shrugged. “I guess this day’s good as any. Hope you like stories.”

They hopped in the car, and soon Piers got them both to the gardens where they often took walks. A few cherry trees have started to blossom, and greenery had sprung its way back onto barren branches.

“I’m a self-made man. After our parent’s accident all Claire and I had was each other, and I was always going to look after her. The air force, S.T.A.R.S, founding the B.S.A.A. was me finding my way, trying to make right in a world gone increasing wrong. You know all about that. I thought I was lucky perhaps. Try hard enough and I could turn things around. We’d had a few tough gigs like Raccoon City, but that was a turning point. I knew what I had to do, we just had to make it work.

“Losing Jill in 2006 hit me hard. I thought we were invincible, I mean, we’ve been through a lot together. Turns out our old Captain still haunts us, always one step ahead, or several.”

Piers nodded quietly as he kept at Chris’ pace. They were on a small bridge crossing a stream, and Chris had paused to stare at the rushing waters.

“For a while I thought all was lost. I was angry all the time. I thought we could scrape every inch of that valley and find them. It was difficult, and we almost lost a few of our men. In hindsight I was far too harsh on them, on myself.

“One week turned into two. Then it was a month. Then three. The other founders felt it was enough to draw things to close. I butted heads, but they got their way. The B.S.A.A. had to move on. There were other leads from Spencer’s mansion. Others threats to respond to. We all had to move on.”

Piers watched the stream with his partner quietly. The water was clean, and it calmed both their spirits.

“I’d heard about that. Was a real turning point of the B.S.A.A. If I recall they were still setting up North American branch and they wanted you to move from Europe HQ.”

“Yeah. The Spencer mansion was in Europe, but there may have been more leads in America. I reluctantly moved across. You know how much I hated the desk work. It was overwhelming being one of the highest raked officials there. Had to sign off on everything. Sit down for meeting after meeting that went nowhere. It was clear that it wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

“And still made a name for yourself in those years.”

“If only I had a capable lieutenant in those days! I was desperate. I wanted Barry back, Rebecca, hell I was that close to asking Claire to help out. Thankfully we finally had a director move over and I volunteered first thing to be a SOA.”

“And got crazily jacked in the process.” Piers grinned, squeezing Chris’ broad shoulders. “Still can’t get my hands across.”

“Eh. I needed size and strength. It was pretty humiliating being lifted up by Wesker in one hand. I had to be able to go toe-to-toe with B.O.W.s.”

“Anyway, history aside, I got my girl back after 3 years. I looked hard enough and made it happen. At the time I thought it was all me. Now I’m not so sure. She’d been through hell with Wesker’s experiments and control, and I wished it’d been sooner, but Jill’s tough as nails. Sometimes I think she’s the toughest of us all. She’s not doing much field work nowadays. I know she’s itching for it, but she’s a far better commander than I am. Ever since the Spencer mansion, she’d grown to be a lot more calculative and cunning. Cool as a tactician, not so hot when you’re friends.”

Piers kept quiet and followed as Chris started walking again to the woods.

“She knows she’d changed. I know she’d changed. We both wish we could go back and be who we were, but life moves on.”

It was Piers’ turn to be awkward. He was essentially Jill’s ‘replacement’.

“We moved on. She was quarantined and I took over Alpha Team SOU. I saw Josh’s work in West Africa- we needed a real team for ops like those to happen. We needed more agents. More boots on the ground because B.O.W.s aren’t scarce in supply anymore. Bioterrorist incidents were starting to become full scale war grounds.”

“Things picked up after that. Alpha Team was close knitted and competent. I hit the jackpot and picked up a capable green beret A.T.L who was competent in all the ways I wasn’t, and easily capable enough when he wasn’t being a pain in the ass.” Chris grinned.

“Hey!” Piers rolled his eyes and gave Chris a backhand. “Just reminding you of all the things you should be doing, Captain.”

Chris sighed, kicking a branch along the path every other step. “Things went to shit thanks to Carla. You already know what happened to the boys, to you and to me.”

“I was lost, a stranger in Edonia. I didn’t even know who I was. It could have been over for Chris Redfield. In a way it was almost a gift, to have a new life, new beginning after the horrors and grief we endured.”

“But it was hollow. That soul wrenching feeling that there is nothing at all anchoring you to this green earth. Do you know how terrifying it was to wake at night to know that anything could happen to me and nobody would know or care? I had no family, no friends, no mission and purpose. I was just working to drink, and drinking to work. I fought sometimes, because it drew attention from others. In hindsight perhaps I was hoping to draw others who care. Or perhaps, to prove to myself that nothing really matters, that nobody ever cared and ever would…”

“Captain...” Piers stared at the ground as they walked through a shady part of the woods. It was a horrific time for both of them. Him tormented by the thought that Chris might have died, or suffering on his own in someplace. Chris, well, he made it clear that though physically he was fine, emotionally it was hell on earth.

“There was a quote, from Hugo I think: ‘the supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved’.” He added.

Chris nodded in agreement. “You were the first person to stand up to my fights in that bar and stop it before it started. I was on tipping point at the end of June. A few more nights like that and I might have fought to my death, just because I wanted it to end.”

“You can’t be serious… all that time, you had a new chance…” Piers said, glancing across to Chris, but they both avoided eye contact.

“But It wasn’t. Even deep in my spirit I had a feeling things had gone very, very wrong. I didn’t know if there was a God, but hell, my life was a shell. I had all my scars over the years on my body as reminders of an empty past. I had no idea who or what I’d been fighting, and why I had trained so hard for it. I thought perhaps my comrades would find me, but Edonia was so devastated by civil war nobody knew what the hell was going on anyway, and I sure as hell didn’t speak the language. I just figured it was that important that I had to keep training, keep myself ready for it in case my past crossed paths with my present.”

Piers nodded as he walked in solidarity. Chris had kept very quiet about his Edonian experiences, even to the B.S.A.A. psychologists and the chat would have done them both a lot of good.

“I thought about things a lot. What if I was stuck in Edonia? What if I really didn’t recall anything if you came and found me? What if I didn’t take our team to China… for a long time, I didn’t know whether my coming back to the B.S.A.A. made things better or worse. I had lost more men in that year than my entire career. I myself had spent more time in the hospital than any other. My body, spirit emotions were all crushed. I asked myself why. Why me? Or rather, why not me…”

“I’d stopped believing in miracles a long time ago. As you know in the military we don’t sit and wait for things to happen. We anticipate conflict and do our best to nip things in the bud. I didn’t volunteer for all those missions because I liked sitting around. I thought I could make things happen if I tried harder.”

By now they came upon a patch of grass under the shade of a tree with some of the rays shining through. Chris lied down and stared up, and Piers followed suit.

“It’s funny how a little time out gets the questions flowing. I’m learning to let go now. That it isn’t all about me making things work. The B.S.A.A. went on without me for half a year, it would have been fine without me in the picture at all. I had the likes of you and now the new Captains and Lieutenants taking over. Fighting bioterrorism isn’t a one man job, and although it’s hard to let go, and I get anxious like hell each time the other boys get to the front, we are all cog in a machine. Everything will keep going.”

“It’s good you have a little peace, Chris.” Piers said, relaxing a little as he spread his limbs out on the grass whereas Chris put his behind his head.

“It’s never easy to admit if God was real and I’m still never sure. But over the last few years, I could start to join the dots. Like the old hymn goes: amazing grace how sweet the sound/ that saved a wretch like me/ I once was lost but now am found/ was blind but now I see.”

Chris paused, and he reached out a hand to take Piers’ in his own as he continued.

“It can’t all be coincidence. When I couldn’t even remember who I was, and nobody else seemingly cared, one man cared enough to come for me and took me back. I’d been running away from my past, my responsibility, and he had shouldered all my burdens to make things right. He was right beside me as things went to shit in China, I was irrational in my desire for vengeance, and I took it out on him, but he accepted my anger and my blame, everything about me. He believed I could be a better man. The man he had in his ideals. The man he believed I could be.”

Piers could feel the warmth in Chris hand and he took each word to heart as Chris continued.

“Down in that facility. You took the hit that was meant for me. You found a way where there was none, gave up your humanity for my sake, brought me back from the depths of darkness and despair and took my place…

Piers felt the hand close around his, and he squeezed back as Chris’ voice cracked a little with emotion.

“People don’t just do that to others. For a long time I cursed myself. It was all my fault. All I wanted was for you to be Captain. You didn’t deserve what happened. I always wanted to protect others, not be protected, least of all by my lieutenant, my protégé, my saviour.”

“If it was anyone else I would have given up and retired, I think. It was too tiring. It’d been too long. I’d lost too many friends and comrades. Picked up too many scars. Said too many goodbyes. I no longer felt competent. But the one thing you gave me as we parted was our calling, our purpose, the one thing that mattered for the both of us. Each time I look at your badge I remember I promised I wouldn’t keep running away. Each time I look at your badge I remember that I’m here because you gave your life for mine, and I owe it to you and everyone who ever believed in me to go on.”

Piers rolled to his side as Chris tugged on his hand as their gaze finally met in sincerity.

“I believe that someone can love me enough to die for me in spite of all my shortcomings, the errors of my ways. My stubbornness and anger. I said I’d stopped believing in miracles but I can’t deny that you were a Messiah to me in more ways than one…

“Then we found you, and I still don’t know how, but you made your way back to us, your fought your own demons and you won. I have little else to ask for. You’ve been the best partner a man could have, on and off the field, and every day I’m reminded how blessed I am to have you by my side.”

Piers smiled, mirroring Chris’ grin, as both men held back the tear in their eyes.

“A very windy answer isn’t it? But I loved the Easter story. The essence of love, of sacrifice, of redemption, and of resurrection and new life. It is real to me because you are real to me. I’m not saying I’m going to worship you, but you’re my angel, Piers. Deep down I’m scared someday I’m scared I’d wake up and see you stretch your wings and fly back to heaven.”

A pair of strong arms pulled Piers to his side, and Piers hugged back.

“I’ll always be there for you Chris. Anyone would have done the same in my place. Though perhaps, they wouldn’t love you the same. Love is a powerful thing, isn’t it?”

Chris kissed Piers on his forehead. “Neither height nor depth, angels nor demons, the past, present and future, death or life can separate us from the love of God.”

“Or each other.” He added quietly, holding his gaze on the shiny hazel before giving a wink.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Easter everyone! It’s not at all easy to bring up religious topics because of the sensitivity, and I’m sure everyone has their own interpretations. Personally, as a Christian who adores Nivanfield, I can say I see all the parallels in Chris and Piers’ story and the biblical one. In the same manner that some say that Valjean from Les Miserables is a Messianic figure, Piers definitely has Messianic overtones in his sacrifice and redemption for his Captain.


End file.
